


i remember you

by macaroonie



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, I'm so sorry, M/M, Mental Health Issues, but I'm not, coffee shop AU, ha, hopefully ends well, panic attack tw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-02-26 22:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2668607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macaroonie/pseuds/macaroonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he wakes up, it is very similar to the previous mornings; in the throes of a nightmare, screaming through clenched teeth into his threadbare pillow, sweating, namelessly terrified.<br/>While he comes down, he stares through his panicked fog into the unfamiliar shapes of the room (not his, a military issued shithole for fuck ups like him). The sleep-muffled objects take real focus to pick out. Chair with tomorrow's neatly folded clothes. Backpack, filled with emergency supplies. Door, firmly locked, an ugly digital clock (it's three in the morning), what could optimistically be called a closet. These things supposedly his, supposedly safe. </p><p>He's recovering. Sometimes it takes a little while to look in the mirror and see something you recognise, but the world is not empty after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. creature fear

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is my first fic on ao3, and is basically a coffee shop au that escaped its fluffy prison and morphed into a angsty monster. please leave feedback and tell me how i can put more queer ladies in, because the marvel universe doesn't leave me much room for that despite my hard efforts.   
> also: all titles are from dedicated shuffling on itunes.

When he wakes up, it is very similar to the previous mornings; in the throes of a nightmare, screaming through clenched teeth into his threadbare pillow, sweating, namelessly terrified.  
While he comes down, he stares through his panicked fog into the unfamiliar shapes of the room (not his, a military issued shithole for fuck ups like him). The sleep-muffled objects take real focus to pick out. Chair with tomorrow's neatly folded clothes. Backpack, filled with emergency supplies. Door, firmly locked, an ugly digital clock (it's three in the morning), what could optimistically be called a closet. These things supposedly his, supposedly safe.  
The man known as James, (and previously Bucky) gasps because this terror is familiar while the room is not yet, and runs a hand through his sweaty hair.  
He slides out of bed. There seems to be very little else to do. Experience has shown that sleep will not come again without chemical aid, and he has run out. He changes the sweat soaked sheets and tries not to think.  
Even fully awake, his choices for the hours ahead seem fragmented and overly difficult. A shower? A run, while the city sleeps? Food? Should he? Should he not? He does not like things without planning but sometimes they are required. The vision is too strong still and it makes decisions so difficult.  
It's three twenty in the morning. He is as safe as possible, he tells himself firmly. He does not believe it and it is uncertain if it is even a comfort. (Safe from what? He does not remember a single nightmare but something is chasing him through his dreams)  
Outside, something clangs (a cat? A dustbin lid?) and he jumps and settles uneasily. You may see him pacing, like an animal in a cage, except he is the cage and the animal together, and more dangerous than either.

Today is the day of the therapist. He has a calendar, too bright for the room but kept carefully all the same, hung on the back of the door and today is the 27th of March and that means today is the day of the therapist. It helps and pleases him to think in logical, mindless circles like this when doing something potentially dangerous such as walking outside. One can only hope it all goes to plan, so in his head he follows a route exactly.  
He has an address (already memorised) clasped in the fist of his best and worst hand and the appointment is at 9:30, so he showers and dresses and eats and is out, out, loping through DC before the commuters fill it with noise.  
The man likes cities better when full but it is then that they are too dangerous to walk through, so he must content himself with the glimpses he gets before they fill in the twilight hours. However, certain charms present themselves through the early morning light: birdsong, grass scent, last night's puddles in the pavement. The muscle stretch and pull is remembered and he slices easily through the concrete 

A deep breath in and out and in again outside the building. A smile half remembered lopsided on his face and he walks in, strides in. This is James, and he is good with people. It's 9:15. "Hi," he says to the receptionist, who bobs up nervously from behind her desk. He startles an answering smile out of her and she lurches forward with questions:  
"Who are you here for? Would you like some coffee? Would you mind waiting?"  
James, who knows these things and never stutters or scares, says "Sam Wilson, yes please, that's fine," and the receptionist blushes with nothing to blush about.  
"I'll get some coffee- "  
James is aware that he makes people blush. Something about this face's smile, posture, tone? It is hard to be James for long periods but it keeps people from wondering and searching deeper. His smile slips when the girl turns and flawlessly rises again when she comes back with two mugs.  
"You haven't even asked me my name," he says conversationally between sips.  
Do normal people blush this much? James is aware that it may be considered a weakness, to have this much of a tell, but it is also rather appealing, seeing his words rise up red on her cheeks.  
"Oh! Um, sorry! Hi, I'm Andrea and you are-?"  
"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, but call me James,"  
It used to be Call me Bucky, but that name feels strange now.  
She notes it down. Perhaps she is new at her job? That would account for the clumsiness. It is certainly easier to think with this name, without worrying about escape routes and shadows, but exhausting as well. The words come out without him consciously deliberating about it. He likes the response that he gets, with Andrea. Would it be proper to ask Andrea for a date? People do that, yes?  
They are silent for a little longer, James comfortably drinking and Andrea peeking looks under her eyelashes; does she think he cannot see? Being James means that people look at him instead of the negative space that is his left arm. It is easier to make decisions without stopping. Sugar in his coffee, smile on his face, staying still on his plastic chair. 

A jingle at twenty five past - Sam Wilson (Call me Sam!) rushes through the door. He smiles even louder than James, they shake hands. It is not so hard if you do not think about it. 

They are at the back of the building, somewhere small and soundproofed. In the silence before they start, he senses Sam sizing him up, looking for cracks, but it is not malicious.  
Almost without noticing, James is slipping. The room is too small and he does not recognise it (although blessedly, the outside world is muffled) and this sharp faced man in front of him looks like he might ask questions that James would like to answer but cannot, and, and -  
"Hey, James," says Sam. "Hey, we're here, it's fine, we can start easy today, would you like to go somewhere quieter?"  
James is back as the world goes less dangerous and says gosh, I'm sorry, I don't go out much, I'm fine really, no I'm sure, do you want to start it's fine we can start now.  
He thinks his babble was acceptable. He cannot start spilling too easily to this man without knowing it is safe. The slip was unforgivable. It will not happen again, of course. 

One and a half hours later, Sam is cycling back to the shop and thinking of Barnes. Sam, low paid part time volunteer Sam, is the first on the job. The file says that largely, Barnes is coping well.  
The man in front of him had smirked and lounged his way through the hour after the first blip of panic. A front?  
(Well, as long as you're sure you're ok, James.  
Yeah, let's start, sorry still happens sometimes but it's fine, I got it under control, comes with being a vet, eh?  
I guess. But the idea of you coming here is to be as fine as you can be. You do not have to be whole but healed. How have you been doing, then? It's been two months since you got back from physio, right?  
I've been doing as well as I can.)  
He answered personal questions, the ones people usually shied away from, blandly and without fuss.  
Sleeping problems. Flashbacks and nightmares, yes. How do you think I've been coping with only one arm, doc?

The file had been extensive on what he had been through.  
Captured two years ago on tour. Brainwashing, as far as the technique had been developed, torture, total memory loss regarding the period spent in captivity, partial amnesia over the rest of his life specifically with emotionally charged memories. Amputated arm, severe phantom pains.  
The file (who were these people?) also said that when first rescued he violently refused medical assistance and did not appear to recognise his former teammates. Resisted restraints and anaesthetic when operated on and did not respond to his name.  
But he's largely, coping well, according to someone else's hurried report.  
He kept pity out of his thoughts because it did not achieve anything. I'm going to help him, I'm going to make sure he doesn't get ignored because he'll go down easy, and if I can't help him then I'll find someone who will.  
Andrea told him there was a pause after she asked his name, almost imperceptible. But charming all the same. Apparently he had requested a therapist through the VA a couple of weeks ago and Sam was churned up through the system. But James seems lost when he's not speaking. And there was nothing there saying that he had PTSD. a suspicious lack of symptoms. Not even an appointment for a prosthetic for the arm that bothers him so much. You could even say that there was a blank space where aftercare should be; apart from the monthly pension, James was alone, completely. Like he rushed himself out.

He pushes through the clouds of his head and goes to his day job. Smiles. Don't get too invested. He slips easily into his other life that is not concerned with bullet entry wounds or how someone could hide for so long, and thinks about James only when the next Tuesday comes.


	2. deep blue day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaa this is hard but also fun. trying to put in not so subtle catws references ha

The large part of the rest of his life, he works at a coffee shop downtown. It's not what he thought he'd be doing at 35, but after coming back - after Riley - a friend of a friend was hiring, and it gave him something to do on weekends. He's been working ever since, and maybe without him noticing it turned into 6 days a week, and a salary, and people he has inside jokes with again.  
The shop is called The Roost. Sam likes birds and it's better than the rest of the weird names his team came up with.  
It's practically his now anyway except that someone else pays the big bills; but it's his Troubleman record playing for the hundredth time, and his ancient movie posters on the walls, and even his coffee selling for 5 dollars a cup.  
His team are good: all younger than him of course, who the hell is still working in a coffee shop at 35, but they're nice college kids from all over. He tries to keep the shop as unpretentious as possible for the sake of his sanity and it's mainly safe from hipster influence. At least the record player actually works, which is more than he can say for some other shops he's been into.  
They say Sam makes the best coffee in DC but he wouldn't know; it's not like he drinks anything that he doesn't make. Alex makes nice muffins and people come in the morning before work for caffeine, and Anna and Tom make posh sounding sandwiches and snark about college assignments.  
There are certainly worse ways he could be spending his life than doing something he enjoys and getting paid (albeit terribly) for it.

Friday nights the kids invite him out for drinks but he has a legion of legendary excuses that he trots out so they laugh and let him off.

This and the VA society and a few other things is his life, now. Sometimes he goes to see a movie and he does laundry when he remembers and basically functions like a human who's done the most important bit of the living, but he tries not to think of it that way. It's maybe been a year, since Riley.

This is how he meets Steve - he's running through the park on a Saturday morning minding his own business and he sees a flash of yellow hair and about 4 foot of white guy on a bike brush past him. "On your left," someone breathes. Sam thinks _come on_ and tries to speed up and laughs, even, when it happens for the fifth time in a row.  
At the end of the week, Mystery Cyclist slows down and waits politely by a tree for Sam to catch up (this is ridiculous, he's actually really fit). He's got a nice smile and the sun's through his hair when he reaches out and says "Hi, I'm Steve Rogers."  
Steve is a small man and delicate but with a strong and sharp face. He's breathing very heavy but controlled, flush high on his thin cheeks, and after introducing himself plucks an inhaler from his pocket and holds it contemplatively, “Just in case,”.  
It turns out he refuses all help, even when it becomes obvious that he needs it and looks intently and sincerely at you when you speak. He mentions he's just moved into DC from NYC and Sam asks how he likes it, slightly defensive since he's lived here all his life, but then he gushes about the parks, how clean it is in comparison to New York, how good it is to move.

He's a little weird but nice, and Sam's shift starts in an hour - Steve could be a serial killer but no-one would believe it - so Sam says "Hey, you want to come over to The Roost at 9 ish? Coffee's on me. It's the one on Dupont Circle, you know -"

Steve says "yes, I'd love to," before Sam can finish. They shake. It's dependable, sweaty and slightly old fashioned, much like Steve himself.

In the shower, it strikes him that maybe Steve is even lonelier than he is, to seek a stranger out in the park based only on similar running paths.

It's nine exactly and the door jingles. Steve, determined and skinny Steve, has the presence of a much less interesting man so it takes him a while to look up from his soon-to-be-latte and wave him over. He's carrying a sketchbook and wearing a severe side parting. Sam didn't notice, half asleep on his run this morning, but Steve is clean cut beautiful, if you like that sort of thing.  
"Hi again," Steve says hopefully when they make eye contact, "I hope you don't mind but-"

He's an artist. Of course. He's asking Sam if he can take over a table for a couple of hours and sketch, if he doesn't mind, he can stop for lunch but he's got to get some sketches done for this commission, your shop is really lovely how long have you had it no _thank you_!  
For all of Steve's clumsiness, when he starts to draw he forgets himself. Sam thinks there might even be a tongue between clenched teeth involved. Steve goes through his first coffee in 2 minutes and most of his sketchpad when the hour is up.  
Sam sends Alex with Steve's soy Americano over for three refills (are you sure? thank you!), and each time he makes the time to look up, blindingly smile, mutter thank you, start sketching again.  
The people in the shop aren't that interesting today but Steve asks this one girl to sit on the other side of his table for a couple of minutes, buys her a coffee, and gives her the sketch when he's done. "You have incredible bone structure," he hears him say as she leaves. "Thank you for your time!"

Alex says, behind the counter, is he even real? Where did you find him? I want one! When he elbows her, he feels about 11. They have a silent tussle war while Alex tries to give Steve another pastry on the house, arguing "He needs it. Look at him. Look at him and tell me that our starving artist in residence doesn't deserve an overly-priced cookie."

It's lunchtime when Sam catches his eye properly and mouths, "Lunch?"  
Steve looks around as if there's anyone else in the cafe right now.

Impossibly, he stumbles while collecting up his mass of papers and stuffing them into his ancient leather satchel. It's endearing. Alex smirks at him when they leave and mouths something he prefers to forget about.

Steve moved to DC from Brooklyn a month ago and he hopes it isn't too obvious he has no clue what he's doing. He also hopes Sam isn't taking him out of pity. Gosh, maybe he's a creeper now. It was a little desperate, wasn't it, talking to him in the park but he honestly is very lost and Sam seemed nice - is nice -  
Over an extremely reasonably priced yet delicious burger, he formulates further opinions. Sam Wilson, vet, ex-paratrooper, barista, volunteer at the VA, is kind, funny, and charming. He knows everyone and everything in DC (lived here all my life, what can I say) and Steve reaches for his pocket book and notes things down: cheap restaurants, best market, swimming pool, cinema, I can't believe you haven't been here yet.  
He is very easy to talk to. They ramble about baseball and music and the ridiculous price of living practically everywhere. Steve resists the temptation to spill to Sam and his gently mocking smiles, but he doesn't know where to start. _I'm lonely_ doesn't cover it, and neither does _I'm dangerously broke_ or _I'm not sure what I'm running from but perhaps if I run fast enough, I'll find out._  
When they say goodbye and Steve has carefully noted his number, he feels good. He has a satchel full of sketches that he can start working on tonight, a stomach full of incredible coffee and burger, and maybe a friend in a new city.  
Sam says "Hey, come round for coffee anytime. I'll play you something other than Troubleman next time you visit. But keep in touch!"  
Yeah, ok! He tries not to look too much like a desperate puppy and probably fails.

As half of a thank-you for befriending him (since he certainly can't afford to pay him back for lunch), that night he starts to work on something with Sam's smile and the way of holding his mug; confident and easy, a full body grin.  
He plays that song he heard when he first entered The Roost on his ancient laptop all night, buzzed with caffeine, unable to sleep, filled with the faces of the people until he stops thinking about himself.  
The next morning slants through his window before he notices but he's still working, charcoal on his chin and eyes heavy. He hasn't drawn much since he got here but now he can't stop and he's afraid to try in case it's for good. The Sam portrait blossomed into everything he missed about home and then everything he is growing to like about here, new, untarnished with memories of everything he's lost.


	3. the word 'hurricane'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has bucky getting triggered leading to a pretty severe panic attack and disassociation. if any of that might trigger you or make you uncomfortable, you probably shouldn't read. it'll get a bit happier soon though, don't worry!

He calls himself (in the privacy of his own head) James as much as possible, to make it familiar to respond to anything at all. Sam, unprompted, quietly suggested it might be a bit difficult to respond to names at first, if he wasn't used to it. He brushed it off, but stored this information like he stores everything Sam tells him. 

He has found a good thing in Sam, he thinks. Sam is kind and seems to want to help. He is clever enough to read in between what James is saying, to listen to what he cannot say. Maybe soon he can say it outright. People always tell him now it's better to say what you're really feeling, but he thought it was like poking a healing wound.  
James does so well for two days that on Thursday he showers the nightmare sweat off and thinks let's go, let's go. He's been doing good, keeping safe, but it's suddenly day and almost spring. Even through the closed windows he can feel the foolish heat of the sun and basks a little.   
In his shitty apartment paid for by the military pension, he has a fridge, a sink, and two hot rings, a bed and a shower. He thinks he should have more and on his better days gets angry enough to even want it, but then it's so much easier to stay with the devil you know than the devil you don't. And anyway, at some point the shapes of the bedroom after a dream became easier to recognise and he stopped stumbling on the way to the shower in the middle of the night. Maybe it's enough screams soaked into the walls, but whatever the reason, in the right light, it feels like something in the general vicinity of home. 

The light of a April morning makes it seem like a cage with the walls of damp cardboard: he could break through them if he knew where to go or who to go to.  
He has no-one but he has a city and two legs to walk upon. Looking in his empty fridge, he even has an excuse. He is the wild animal and the keeper with the keys so he is stepping out before he can convince himself not to.  
He has a list (things go better when planned) and a destination (a grocery store further than he usually goes, the other side of town) but he lets himself meander and wander a little slower than usual.   
He knows it is inadvisable to say the least but it's just - he never does anything by daylight or with people any more. With James on his face (and it's becoming easier to be him) he holds himself straighter and peoples' eyes no longer slide over him when he walks. Slipping through the crowds, he feels apart but almost, almost the same - like one fish of a different colour. The pretence is everything. 

It seems impossible, but he's walking back in the sun through the streets and people are talking around him. The air is colder than the sun would lead you to expect but so much better than the falseness of inside. It's unreal to sit in a park that was not planned (going off the path required the equivalent of asking permission from himself as a reward for good behaviour). Like Red Riding Hood, off the well trodden asphalt path, stopping and slowing against all advice to look at beautiful things.   
He knows he's not safe, never safe. The knowledge feels so much more distant when he is almost out of his own consciousness floating through the sounds of the city. Like a dream, sprawled out on a out of the way path of grass with the clouds passing above. He doesn't even feel like himself (or like a he, like a person) and mostly it is an exhale of relief. He listens to the sounds of children playing and the wind brushing through the trees and is passively warmed by the sun. It is the best and the most vulnerable he has been in months.

Despite our best hopes, we all know that dreams cannot last and the Red Riding Hood was and always must be accosted by the wolf (although in this case he is both the wolf and the wayward child).   
The moment breaks and he is pulled back into his body in one terrible movement when someone shouts in another language and he hears a slap. 

Someone helps him back to his flat, his hole.   
He thinks it might have been a woman.   
He remembers her asking him his address, and that it would have been easier if he could stop crying. Telepathically, maybe, she finds out where he lives and leaves him shaking, pathetic on the borrowed floor.  
He thinks that firstly someone held him back from hurting the source of the raised voice and the subsequent tears and then someone just held him while he fell apart.   
Analytically, he adds raised voice/anger, fighting, crying, to his list of triggers that Sam suggested he started keeping.  
He is disgusting. He is worthless. He is a disappointment, a danger, he could not even take himself home because he was shaking too hard.  
The problem is he is weak.  
The groceries are neatly packed in his kitchen when he checks, although he knows he didn't do it. For the first time he notices that his flat is stuffy and smells of sweat and thinks about cleaning it, but then again, what is the point. He deserves nothing more.  
There is a number written on his arm (he has a sudden memory, a woman holding him firmly and calmly saying call me next time) and before it washes off in the shower he gets out and writes it down.  
It isn't even that he is weak, he thinks even later when he is in the gym trying to keep awake. It is that he doesn't know exactly what he is doing or how to stop it, any of it. Punch, punch, punch each one a right hook, huh. He doesn't trust himself and cannot trust himself, and this weakness is not like a wound that can be healed. He thinks, I do not know a medicine for this. With each day he becomes less distant from himself (Sam says this is a good thing) but it just means it is more difficult to forget and more painful when it comes. Everything is more real, and so the hours drag by and sandpaper him smooth. And then there's this, step step step on the treadmill, a rat on a wheel.   
Pant, sweat, ache ache ache, sensations not thought. He slinks like a wolf to sleep in shelter.

When his voice works again he calls the number because Sam is four days away and he knows better than to act rashly. Behind the anxiety is the wonder that he has someone to call. The phone is sweaty in his palm and he dials, lets it ring, hopes for him to pick up and to leave it both. Placing trust is not something that comes easily, at all. 

\---------------------------------- 

Sam's phone rings. It's James. He's never called before, although he's had the number since the first session. It is very strange to have his day life interrupted by James' small and broken one.   
James is speaking more and more honestly in sessions now, although still covering any truth with a layer of thick and practised pretence. Really, Sam has offered anything more than a listening ear and general breathing exercises, “just in case,” although he seems to ignore the advice. 

Sam knows that a problem with many vets is just isolation. Brimming full of experiences and with no-one to pour it out to. James has no family on record and none that he remembers. Forgot everything. A life disappeared. Or maybe he had none to begin with.   
Sometimes Sam thinks there are things he'd rather erase from his memory (Riley, Riley) but never along with the good. Some people don't have a choice. 

He presses the button. The voice comes through; formal, controlled.   
“Hello, Sam,” but the tone is different. No humour. Reporting instead of relating.   
“I'm sorry to bother you but today I went out to the park, this morning it was glowing, it was lovely, and there was a cage around me and this man, he, he slapped a child and I split down the middle I lost myself a woman found me. She took me back to my cage and then I called you. Now I'm here.


End file.
